


A Weary, Troubled Smile

by jpnadia



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Abigail sees two orphaned bone nuns, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, almost, and doesn’t even wait for an answer, asks if anyone is going to adopt them, tltexchange2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28530081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jpnadia/pseuds/jpnadia
Summary: “My parents are-- indisposed.” The child hardly faltered, though she barely made a speck of black cloak against the decrepit armored bulk of her retainer. “I act in their stead.”Abigail drew a deep breath. Dead, then. She was sure of it, but she would gain nothing by forcing the child to admit it. “I do not come as a pilgrim, Reverend Daughter. I come to seek the aid of the Ninth House. Will you help me?”At the behest of the very young newly-minted Master Warden, Lady Abigail Pent arrives on Drearburh to ask the Reverend Mother and Father for help. Instead, she finds two girls in desperate need of parents.They won’t let her help, but the young Reverend Daughter is willing to bargain.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 27
Kudos: 196





	A Weary, Troubled Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [manywheels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manywheels/gifts).



> For Tree for the Locked Tomb Holiday Exchange 2020.
> 
> Title from the description of Abigail at the end of Chapter 40 of HARROW THE NINTH.

The air on the surface of the Ninth House at the bottom of the interminable drill shaft where the shuttle had landed was so cold Abigail was glad she’d worn thick, sensible socks. The atmosphere was thin and dusty, and she had to tread carefully to avoid stubbing her toe on the rocky ground.

A gangly youth had run over to greet the shuttle and fallen back when Abigail emerged. Their cloak and hood couldn’t conceal lanky limbs that spoke of the ravages of early puberty, and they carried a two-handed infantry sword that was much too big for them.

“Hello,” said Abigail, approaching the child and mustering up all the warmth she could. Her breath made clouds in the frosty air. “I’m Lady Abigail Pent of Koniortos Court.”

The hood drew back to reveal shockingly red hair. “The Ninth doesn’t get visitors.”

Definitely still a child, in spite of the height, with cheeks pinked with exertion and cold. Probably eleven or twelve years old. It heartened Abigail to learn that even the Ninth had young people with absolutely no sense of etiquette. “And you are?”

“Gideon Nav,” said the child, and then paused, looking furtively over their shoulder. Then they leaned in and whispered, urgently: “I’m going to join the Cohort and be the best swordswoman the Ninth has produced, next to Matthias Nonius!”

Little Jeannemary and Isaac, aged seven and six, had similar ambitions. Something in the way the child had said it sent alarms quietly blaring in Abigail, though-- as if it was Gideon’s deepest and most cherished secret-- as if she’d faced adversity in this utterly banal childish ambition. Out of habit, Abigail crouched down, and then straightened up, pretending she just needed to stretch her limbs after the shuttle ride. Gideon had reached some appreciable fraction of her adult height and was at that delicate age where she would not appreciate condescension. “Will you show me your sword drill?”

Gideon grinned-- radiant joy and bright color against the monochrome whites and greys and blacks of the Ninth, and oh my, her eyes were a luminous gold that made Abigail itch to get her hands on the genealogy charts of the Ninth. The enormous sword did not waver in that barely-adolescent grip, and something about that nagged at Abigail as well.

“Nav!” bellowed someone from the depths of the shadows.

“Shit,” said Gideon, fervently. She sheathed her sword immediately and hunched in on herself.

Abigail quashed the impulse to scold. It was a shockingly accurate assessment of the situation.

“You belong in the oss,” the armored newcomer continued, at a roar. He loomed over the child. “I command you to go now.”

At this provocation, Gideon straightened up. “Aiglamene said I could--”

“And I come to revoke that permission,” said the man. “You steal from this house, you wrong its Lady, you--”

There was absolutely no call for this. Abigail plastered her best diplomatic smile on her face and stepped in front of the child, cutting the man off. “Lady Abigail Pent of Koniortos Court. Pleased to meet you…?” She proffered her gloved hand and waited for his name.

He crossed his arms and glared at her. “Marshal Crux. The Ninth is closed to pilgrims.”

The shuttle had already taken off. Abigail had arranged for an extra shuttle to come take her home, a week hence, and was overcome with the unbecoming urge to send a request to the pilot to come back so she could leave immediately. Something was very wrong here: this was exactly why she’d come. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “But my shuttle has left. Could you tell the Reverend Mother that I’ve arrived?”

“Wait here.” Marshal Crux glared at her, turned, and stumped away.

“Thanks,” said Gideon, shimmying out of her hiding place once the great doors of Drearburh had slammed behind him. “You really saved my ass, I thought for sure he was going to whip me.”

 _What?_ While she churned this new information furiously in the back of her mind, Abigail opened her mouth to rebuke Gideon for her language, but the girl was already running. She slipped through those enormous doors much more quietly than the man had.

Left without much choice, Abigail tucked her hands into her sleeves and waited.

* * *

Half an hour later, as Abigail’s teeth were beginning to chatter in spite of her warm clothing, a tiny figure emerged, face painted in immaculate skull paint and figure encrusted with bones. This could only be the Reverend Daughter.

“The Ninth House is closed to pilgrims.”

“I was already in transit,” Abigail lied promptly. The letter in her pocket -- that desperate missive from a boy who had barely turned fourteen-- rustled. 

“You must leave immediately.” This ten-year-old necromancer carried herself as thought the weight of her House rested on her shoulders. Even Abigail did not yet have that responsibility, though the succession was obvious and she suspected she would receive Head of House within the next five years, whether she wanted it or not. It shamed her to think she could learn lessons from this wisp of a girl.

She couldn’t dwell on that, though. She had a mission, and she intended to complete it. “I’m so sorry, but my shuttle has already left, and the next one won’t be by for another week.” Then she asked a question, though she suspected she already knew the answer. “Reverend Daughter, where are your parents?”

“My parents are-- indisposed.” The child hardly faltered, though she barely made a speck of black cloak against the decrepit armored bulk of her retainer. “I act in their stead.”

Abigail drew a deep breath. Dead, then. She was sure of it, but she would gain nothing by forcing the child to admit it. “I do not come as a pilgrim, Reverend Daughter. I come to seek the aid of the Ninth House. Will you help me?”

* * *

The Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus did not offer her a tour, but brought her directly to the chapel, allowing her only the briefest glimpse of what Abigail could immediately identify as the six-months-dead corpses of her parents. Any necromancer would have caught on, which meant that the Ninth House was in dire straits indeed.

In the echoing chamber, populated sparsely with the skeletons barring the doors and the Reverend Daughter and her retainers, Abigail spotted the gangly youth she’d met first creeping behind the pillars, clearly desperate for a taste of excitement. She was unlikely to find any excitement here, but Abigail appreciated the spirit.

Abigail would have to play this very, very carefully, because this was a House held together with pride and osteoporosis. It was also a sterling example of the very reason she had come.

“Every house I have visited is dying, Reverend Daughter. Will you band together with me to find out why? My own house is crumpling under the weight of its own traditions. There are no adults left on the Fourth: they have all gone to the front, and most of them have died there. The Sixth wrote me for help, because they could not save the Seventh, who have pinned all their hopes on a necromancer who is half-dead herself. Even the Eighth would see me, even if they would not admit their obvious problem. Will you do less than those zealots?”

The Reverend Daughter was absolutely tiny against the majestic bone-encrusted friezes of the chapel wall, but she did not shiver, even as the heating vents clanked and spewed air that still felt cold to Abigail's chilled bones. Her mouth went small and taut. Abigail kept her peace and let the girl think, let her come to a decision that should never have fallen to a child.

At last, Harrowhark leaned in. She spoke very quietly, so that even the great-aunts who sat clacking their prayer beads two pews behind her might not hear. “You swear that I may keep the traditions of my house and the illusions I have wrought to preserve them? That I need not marry outside it?”

Abigail looked at the lump of man in his mid-twenties sitting with the great-aunts, the only adult she’d seen here under the age of sixty. (This raised other questions in Abigail’s mind, but she was not going to ask them of a bereaved ten-year-old.) She looked at the girl of eleven currently trying to surreptitiously do push-ups behind a pillar. There were not a lot of choices here. But perhaps the young Reverend Daughter already knew her own mind. She had barely been older when she’d first kissed the man who would become her husband.

She met Harrowhark halfway, afforded her the courtesy of the same lowered voice. “I swear, Reverend Daughter, that no banner but the Black Anchorite will ever hang in these halls. I swear that I will defend the traditions of the Ninth House, whether you help me or not. And I swear neither I nor anyone else of my House will ever arrange an out-of-house marriage for you.”

For the first time, Abigail caught a glimpse of surprise beneath the paint on Harrowhark’s young face. “You’ve done your homework, Lady Pent.”

“I’m a scholar of history. And more to that, I am of the Fifth. We take debts to the dead very seriously.”

The Reverend Daughter visibly startled at this. “Tell me what you need of me.” 

Abigail leaned in and told her.

* * *

###  _one year later, ages eleven and twelve_

Nerves rose as Abigail stepped onto the shuttle. Harrowhark was an alarmingly thorough correspondent, and the notes that Gideon had clearly snuck in without permission buoyed her spirits. Magnus reached for her from behind, sliding his hands up her arms. “It will be all right. They’re only children.”

“You haven’t met them,” said Abigail, but she allowed him to rub her shoulders until she relaxed against him. The shuttle ride took an eternity, and was over before she felt really prepared.

They were waiting for her when the shuttle landed-- Gideon practicing with her sword, as before, and Harrow perched in a rigid facsimile of serenity.

“You’ve arrived,” said Harrow, the moment the shuttle disgorged its passengers.

“We brought you something,” said Magnus, since the moment for a _hello_ had gone.

Harrow’s brow furrowed. “Of course. The food and fuel and water, as promised, in return for the theorem calculations I supplied.”

“That’s for the Ninth, and that’s all here too. This is for _you_.” Abigail told them, passing them each a box wrapped in plain brown flimsy and tied with twine. She added hastily: “Don’t worry, it isn’t much. Even the resources of the Fifth have grown thin. But please accept these as a token of good faith. We can get through this together.”

Harrowhark pulled a stud from her ear and formed it into a blade, which she used to neatly cut the twine and the flimsy for later reuse.

Gideon ripped wholesale into the box. Shredded flimsy fell on the floor in a flurry around her, and she got her gift open first. “Harrow, Harrow, _look!_ ” She drew forth a pair of trousers that were very similar to the ones that she was wearing: black polymer weave, simple design. The big difference was that they were _new_ , fabric thick and warm and as yet unpatched. Gideon stroked them and then, abandoning any trace of dignity, buried her face in the fabric.

“If you’re going to change, Nav, do it somewhere discreet,” Harrowhark told her. “No one wants to see you without trousers on.”

“I wouldn’t change here, anyway,” yelled Gideon, already making a beeline for the door with the new trousers waving wildly after her. “My ass is too hot to get frostbite!”

“I had to guess at the measurements,” said Abigail. “You’ve grown.” Which was true for both of them, but she wished Harrow had grown a little bit more. She was going to have a talk with Marshal Crux about making sure the Reverend Daughter was getting enough food.

“Thank you,” Harrowhark told her formally. “I appreciate the gesture.”

The gifts had hit the mark, Abigail decided. Just the right combination of frivolous and practical. The knowledge that a single brand-new garment counted as frivolity chewed on Abigail's organs from the inside. She wanted to do more.

* * *

From a brief visual inspection as the Reverend Daughter led her through the halls, the Ninth was doing better than Harrowhark’s letters had led her to believe. She was going to get her hands on the Ninth’s books if she had to sneak in under the Reverend Daughter’s nose. They would need help from all eight houses if they were going to scourge away the rot that was destroying their civilization from the inside, and Harrowhark appeared to have a gift for conserving resources.

They were still children, of course, without enough adults around to care for them properly. Seeing them only once a year was really not enough, but all of Abigail’s attempts to get them to come visit the Fifth had been resoundingly unsuccessful.

The main point was that they both seemed _better_ than they had a year ago, when she’d first arrived. They were _children_ again-- children carrying far more responsibility than a child should ever have to bear, but that couldn’t be helped. Gideon had only flinched a little when Magnus had swept her up into a hug. (Abigail had stopped Magnus from attempting the same thing with Harrowhark, who guarded her personal space as jealously as she guarded the resources of her house. She didn’t know if the Reverend Daughter would ever accept easy physical affection, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying.)

* * *

###  _six years after that, ages seventeen and eighteen_

Abigail got Harrowhark’s letter nearly before she got her own into the mail. _I got the summons to Canaan House, and I presume you did as well,_ the Reverend Daughter had written. _I don’t trust it_. _I propose we convene on the Seventh to discuss strategy in person, as Lady Septimus may find additional travel taxing. Unless I hear otherwise, I will set off in two weeks. We don’t have time to argue logistics, and this is the most practical solution._

She agreed on all points, copied an affirmative seven times, and began to make her own travel plans.

* * *

On the Seventh, the Ninth shuttle docked last. They’d gotten representatives from every House, even the Second and the Eighth. They were only missing Ianthe and Naberius from the Third. (“I love my sister,” Corona had written in an uncharacteristically separate missive, “but if I’ve read the situation correctly, I cannot trust her in this.”)

The Reverend Daughter disembarked, dressed in full formal regalia that Abigail had almost forgotten existed, because Harrow had stopped wearing it during Abigail’s infrequent visits. Half a step behind her walked Gideon Nav, whose arms had gotten perceptibly bigger since the last time they’d seen each other. (Abigail hadn’t even realized that was _possible_ , especially not on a diet that still consisted overwhelmingly of snow leeks and nutrient paste.)

At the first opportunity, Abigail caught Harrowhark and drew her away from the group. “You made her your _cavalier_?” 

Harrowhark tugged a glove off uncomfortably. “I had no choice. I needed Ortus to look after my interests in Drearburh, and I suspected I needed a cavalier who could fight.”

Abigail’s heart broke for her. “The Second will be here. They won’t understand.”

“It’s not like that between us.” Harrowhark pulled the glove back on and smoothed it over her wrist. “I anticipated something like this might happen after the results the Master Warden sent us two years ago.”

At Harrowhark’s age, Abigail had been stealing every opportunity to kiss Magnus, and they’d broken up for a much sillier reason than the survival of the people of the Nine Houses. She desperately wanted to argue, to encourage Harrowhark to follow her heart. But that was not a productive argument, nor did they have time for it.

Harrow turned to go. “I thought that you, of all people, would understand, Lady Pent.” 

“I do,” whispered Abigail. That was the problem.

* * *

A few days later, Gideon caught a woman with a wasted build and denim-blue eyes lurking behind a trellis of roses while they were planning.

“I don’t know you,” said the Duchess of Rhodes. “You aren’t from the Seventh.”

This flew directly in the face of Abigail’s read of the stranger’s features. Her hackles raised, and she shuffled husband the children from the Fourth behind her, followed by her husband. She gestured to the Ninth as well, but Harrowhark stood her ground, and Gideon stood firm at her elbow. The entire group had tensed for a fight.

The strange Seventh-looking woman took the measure of their alliance of fifteen souls. “No, you don’t know me,” she said cheerfully. “And I haven’t been from the Seventh in a very long time. But I’ve been listening to your plans since you arrived--” (“You got through all our wards?” exclaimed Isaac despondently.) “--and I think we share a goal. My name is Cytherea, and I am a Lyctor.”

* * *

After that, it _still_ wasn’t easy to fix the River and kill God. But they only lost Silas Octakiseron, who at the very end of everything, had died to protect his nephew. “Forgive me,” he’d said to Colum, just before he had borne the Prince of Death past the threshold beyond which there was no return. Even Naberius Tern was slowly recovering from the wounds he’d incurred when Ianthe Tridentarius betrayed them.

In the aftermath, Abigail swept Jeannemary, Isaac, Gideon, and Harrowhark into her arms. They all squashed together, and even Harrowhark didn’t protest as Gideon’s shoulder soaked up the tears Abigail couldn’t hold back.

* * *

###  _four years after that, ages twenty-one and twenty-two_

“You can marry anyone you want, Harrowhark,” Abigail said, helping lace up Harrowhark’s dress. It was long-sleeved and black and covered her from her neck to her boots. Now that they were both adults, she felt comfortable enough to tease her. “The Nine Houses don’t exist anymore. You don’t have to hold yourself to a promise we made to each other when you were ten.”

“I know,” said Harrowhark. Her smiles were rare, and the occasions she accepted kind touches rarer, but she reached out for Abigail then, a fleeting touch on the elbow. “But I _want_ to marry her. And there’s no such thing as a cavalier anymore, so I _can_.”

Abigail looked at the former necromancer of the no-longer-extant Ninth House-- still dressed in her blacks, still adorning herself with bone earrings and bone bangles and, today, a formal choker of delicate bone fretwork spilling over her collar. She thought of Gideon Nav, who was two rooms over getting similar help from her husband. 

It was only in the past two years that she’d been able to coax Harrowhark into admitting that she wanted anything for herself at all. And now, here she was, choosing her own future.

Wiping away a tear, Abigail Pent prepared to conduct one of the girls she had always wanted to adopt out of the room so that she could marry the other. 

Neither of them needed her anymore. And yet-- they had invited her anyway. The note had come in Harrow's formal handwriting, as the letters always had, with a note in Gideon's scrawl tucked inside. (Harrow's everyday handwriting was different, and sloppier.)

 _It would mean a lot to us_ , Gideon's note had read.

It meant a lot to Abigail, too.

* * *

The wedding was outside, because Gideon had fallen in love with everything in the universe that was bright and green and alive, even the stinging insects that came out at dusk and bit itchy spots into everyone's necks and elbows. Harrowhark hadn't, but she loved Gideon enough that it worked out the same anyway.

After the ceremony, a beaming Gideon clutched at Harrowhark’s hand and steered her new wife around the assembled crowd: the allies they’d had for half their lives, now, and the people who had joined them on the journey.

Abigail leaned against her husband as they waited their turn. She’d already soaked through her handkerchief, but never mind: they were tears of joy. Both Harrow and Gideon had smudged their skull paint, because they couldn’t stop kissing each other.

Even though she’d thought she’d already cried herself out, her eyes grew hot as the happy couple approached. “We did it,” said Gideon. She dragged Harrow close against her, and Harrow said nothing, but she smiled up at her wife and did not contradict her, which spoke volumes on its own.

“I’m proud of you,” Abigail said, and for once, neither of them argued.

**Author's Note:**

> You know that scene in Robin Hood, where Lady Kluck is just like [“fuck you, Sherriff of Nottingham”](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2b/c2/ee/2bc2ee53182ba92bcb27ca8e330bda68.gif)? That, but with Abigail and Crux.


End file.
